Things don't always go the way you think they should!

I have been taking a photography class at night school for the last few weeks. I’m used to taking my pictures on the automatic setting of my Nikon D40 and the first thing we had to do is change it to manual! That started all kinds of new things for me, from aperture to shutter speed. My home work was to take certain pictures on different settings. So Sunday afternoon saw me tramping through our bush.This tree was as colourful as I could find.This year the colors of the trees have not been great. 

I did find a few roses at the side of our house: they are not the prettiest, but they give some color. I'm not very good at this manual thing yet, but I did get a few things figured out.

Then on Tuesday I could not go to class, because of illness. Last week we started with the quilting -- there is a lot of it, but we’d made a good start, till Tuesday. In the middle of the night I woke up, all dizzy. I could not stand or even sit! A week before, I had been to the doctor with my ear infection, and he’d made an appointment with the specialist for me, that just happened to be on the Wednesday! Laurence managed to get me there. As it turned out, the dizziness had nothing to do with my ear infection, but something floating around in my inner ear. The specialist twisted my head a certain way and almost instantly the dizziness was gone. But not being able to eat or drink much for the previous 2 days had left me weak.

Needless to say, that there has not been any quilting done, but I hope to be back in business by the beginning of next week. Here is a picture of the Monday group, with Margot, Jeanette,Charlotte and Emily.

Ready to quilt

A quilt top is not a quilt till it has been quilted.

Tuesday was the day to put the "papercut" quilt in the frame for quilting. There is lots of room down here in the basement to set a quilting frame up. Emily and Carol, both very experienced, drove up from Waterloo to help. In just 45 minutes, the quilt was all ready to go.

Wednesday, we had our guild meeting and I made sure I had lots of hand-outs with the directions to our place: today was the first day for quilting. We started of with only the three of us. Better to say two and a half: I have trouble with hand quilting. My back just won't let me do much of it.

This morning, I tried really hard, but did not get much done. In the afternoon, I tried the stab method. By having one hand on top and one on the bottom and stabbing the needle up and down, I managed to get more done with even stitches. So from now on this will be my(very awkward and slow) way.

Here are 2 expert quilters, Carol on the right and Florence on the left. They worked very well together with one being left handed, the other right handed. Tomorrow, I expect 6 ladies to come here. There is a lot of quilting on this quilt, but any less would not look right. Notice the 2 posters behind the quilters? That are two of the quilts done by the guild and the church, both sold at the Mennonite Relief Sale in New Hamburg. The one on the right was finished in 1999, and won an honorable mention in the group category in Houston. It sold in 2000 for $16,000. The one on the left was sold 6 years later. Made by the same groups, this one showed interpretations of the aerial photography by Carl Hiebert. It was purchased by Carl for $11,100. The quilt currently in the frame will be the 6th one to go to the Relief Sale.

The weather has turned again. It is wet and cold. The soybeans have been combined and the winter wheat planted, so we are not in too bad a shape. The corn has to be done yet, but that can wait a week or so. With weather like this, it is kind of cosy quilting downstairs!

Woodstock fleece festival

This is later than normal, but nothing happened on the quilt front. The design wall is empty. Not that nothing is getting done. The weather is much better and Laurence has been busy combining the white beans(of pork and bean fame) and soybeans. And as often happens, once the weather clears there are about a dozen jobs that have to be done at the same time. We are lucky , that we share our field work with our neighbour Herb. Today he has taken over the combining, while Laurence is planting winter wheat. It looks like we will get a few more sunny days and we need them. Jeanette came over last night and this morning we went to the first Woodstock Fleece Festival. Last year she went to the Wool Festival in Rheinbeck, New York, but with all the work going on at home, it was just too far to go. And we had a great time.This was much smaller, but there was lots to see and buy. The first picture shows a fellow quilter from the Oakville Guild,Marnie Parkin, who also makes socks on a 1925 sock machine. They are the neatest thing to see in operation. And despite the age this machine still works perfect. And then there was another quilter, Rita Budd. I have admired her landscapes for a long time. I even took a 2 day workshop in her barn a few years ago. A perfect place to have workshops. Outside there were a few sheep and 2 alpaca's. This one seemed quite content, but the other fellow did not like it one bit. There was lots of beautiful yarn for sale. When I used to knit sweaters for the kids, a long time ago, you could choose between wool or acrylic. Now the choices are endless, from bamboo to soybean, to camel,to cotton. to wool. And the colors!!!!! I did come home with enough yarn to knit a pair of socks and a scarf. Now to find the time!

Way up there.....

As long as we have been living here ( all of 10 months) I wanted to have a quilt hang way up on the wall. Now that was easier said than done. To get up on the left of the railing was easy, but to install a hanger of any kind on the right side, was almost impossible. But yesterday, after another miserable, rainy day and no combining in sight, Laurence decided, that it could be done. He had this long plank, left over from a cementing job, that he could put across.He could stand on there and install the 2 eye hooks. I had my reservations, but it worked. Now if you have a close look, you can see that this all is just temporary. This wallhanging is one of my first and it is not quite big enough for that spot. It was one of the few with a sleeve though.Then notice the long dowel. The next one will be cut to the right size. And the string. All I could find was this white string and I knew that this would be a one time deal. I used that. On my list for town is nylon fish line. Main thing is, that it hangs straight. The quilt meant for that spot has been basted and it will be quilted in the next few weeks. Not too much is getting done. I thought that my ear infection was gone, but it has returned, with a vengeance. So back to the doctor it was and now I'm on 2 medications, oral and drops.And no hearing aid for the next few weeks. So it is back to shouting for my poor husband. The medication also seems to affect my stomach. Just to have something to do I got a few left overs together and made this post card. I appliqued the circle, left over from another project, and did some sashiko in the same pattern as you see in the applique. Quick and easy. Next on my list is the marking of the large papercut quilt.I will put it the frame in the basement and ask members of the guild to come and quilt on it near the end of the month The weather has been very poor with lots of rain and hard wind. All the crops are still in the field and it does not look like there will be anything done in the near future. A few flowers are still in bloom. These flowers were called "naked ladies" by my mother in law. They are different. The leaves come up in early spring and then die down. The flowers won't show up till late in the fall. They almost look like a bigger crocus and they are very pretty. Clean-up of the garden will start on the first nice day.